Bad times...whats the best way forward??

[Kali_sparks]

Hi, this is my first post and thought would be the best place to ask like minded people about our trade.

A feew years ago I made a decision to drop my current job (IT) as work there was slowing down and go train to be an electrician. 3 Years later I have my 2330 and 17th edition along with experince working on and off with different local sparks. I started then doing private jobs and just over a year ago officially went self empolyed.

The 1st year I expected a loss or very little profit but coming into my 2nd year and havent had a peep since december. Funds are running low and life is getting depressing lol so need to do something. But judging by reading other posts that im not the only one, seems like a lot of people are struggling and am starting to belive that the best days of this trade are well behind us now. Good time for a career change? (again for me)

I wanted to look at possibly home automation or solar PV courses and try and get into that, but they cost a lot of money and am in a catch 22 were im not earning money to spend money so am stuck in the same spot.

Do maybe any of you guys now of any free home automation courses or cheap solar PV or possibly any funding for any sort of courses before I become officially unemployed.

Have also considered leaflet drops and so on but am gathering so far that doesnt work for everyone and maybe a cost i cant afford to risk. Tried for other jobs but they want an ECS card, which again is another cost I cant acutally afford at the mo and even if I did get it, wouldnt guarntee me work. Not domestic type jobs I do anyway.

Any tips or advice from some of you guys would really help now as I am down and out and cant see what I need to do to push forward. If I had known it would cost me so much money to be able to work in this job I probably wouldnt have touched the sparky trade, its a rich mans world in this job.

 

[malcolmsanford]

I do feel for you but unfortunately it's the result of over saturating a shrinking market. I know this may be a really long punt but what about retraining as a nurse?

My wife runs a nursing home and she is telling me in all areas of medicine there is a real shortage of them. she had a guy come in from an agency, he had retrained from being a car mechanic and in Kent where we live it's minimum wage the norm, he was geting 18 pound an hour from the agency to do weekend or night shifts which is all he does. She pays 13 pound an hour for a staff nurse and the NHS pay more.

It may sound silly but it got me thinking.

 

[Kali_sparks]

thanks for your reply malcolm. Belive me I am thinking of all sorts to go and do at the moment. Its a real shame as I feel ive wasted so many years of my life training for nothing really.

Nursing sounds interesting will definitly look into it. Have also thought of maybe turining the van into a delivary van and sub delivary work out.

 

[LukeD]

Dive safety officer . Too many divers , not enough safety officers. Seriously big money. not a lot to train. Nursing or health care assistant is not bad money ,,,, but many homes are closing.

 

[grantr37]

what about going into maintaining healthcare electrical equipment for a while? all those things need pat testing and their flexes checked over, a good place to look at getting a start until you get into it fully is by going round all your local Dental surgeries and care homes,also another good place to look at offering your services is at all the small local internet cafes that are in need of a bit of renovation, get yourself a few different ceiling tiles, some nice fancy recessed light fittings, sockets, switches and a few different odds and ends including fire exit signs etc to show the customer as examples, then find yourself a local joiner and a painter who are looking for work as well, go round and offer to do small renovations, you and the joiner can go in first and do the walls/floor/wiring up, put in new fittings and the painter can come round after and give it a tape and paint and put up the signs....


Offer:

Energy saving bright recessed light fittings

battery maintained Fire Exit signs

some Fire extinguishers

Ceiling tile replacement

New Sockets and switches

woodwork

Drywall

a lick of paint

Try to sell some cable management clips/copex


and throw in a free PAT test at the end of each refit...then leave a pile of nice mousemats behind with your company name and make sure you get to take a picture for your website...

 

[Marvo]

I've seen this many times. The grass is always greener in another trade and when you've finally re-quaiified you find you're back at square one. There's a very big difference between a tradesman and a businessman. You were and still are a tradesman, if you're self employed you need to be a businessman as well. Do some studying on running a small business along with some marketing techniques. Start a website, put some interesting articles and info on it and SEO optimise it, get it high in the search rankings and start marketing your business. Once you have this skill set under your belt you'll be able to apply it to whatever trade you fancy and you're much more likely to run a successful business.

 

[Spudnik]

See edit

 

[Festerfly]

Marvo has a point. I have often wondered how some people seem to be making big money when they have little to no practical knowledge. A business mind is the one to have in this environment I think.

Personally I can't complain. Business for me is going well and continues to grow. I have never advertised and aside from the new website I wasn't intending to at this time.

Don't jack it all in just yet Kali_sparks. I know it's tough when there's nowt coming in and nothing on the horizon ( I know, I've been there too) but with all that investment in both Time and Money. It would probably pay more to do a bit more study and outlay and head towards some of the newer areas of our trade as you mentioned.

Good luck!

 

[Octopus]

"Have also considered leaflet drops and so on but am gathering so far that doesnt work for everyone and maybe a cost i cant afford to risk."

Sitting at home waiting for the home won't bring in any money either.

Get some leaftlets/rack cards done, spend time making them look professional and have a go, sure it'll cost you money (the cheaper they are the more likely they are to get binned or recycled) but sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate.

Also when you're out leafleting, when you see a home owner try and get a few words about your "skills".

I've got a quiet week next week, so I'll be out doing some more leafleting.......

 

[grantr37]

a nice fridge magnet with a good picture on it that somebody will want to keep, like maybe a horse grazing in front of an American style Road side advertising sign (with your number and website/business name on the sign) to appeal to women, or a picture of a nice new sports car, with another picture beside it of a through the windscreen view of a roadsign with your web address and phone number on it, so that it looks like it was taken from inside the car....

I just got a flyer shoved in my door there with an advert for Solar Heating and Electricity on it...

Another thing to consider doing is to get a pile of beer mats (maybe 200) made up with a picture of something like a funky retro 50's style Neon tube on one side spelling the word "electricity" or something similar, then on the other side have it again with a few of the letters unlit and a caption like " need a bright spark?" followed by your name/business name, a telephone number and a website address, and one of those square machine readable Facebook barcodes as well...for the mobile phones...put them in a couple of local bars and cafes...

 

[Marvo]

Your success rate from plain old flyers in mailboxes is going to be very low. Flyers should be a small part of a bigger marketing campaign. The best chance you have with flyers is if you put some useful info on there that will make them want to keep it. I saw one flyer in my mailbox which was for a sparky, it had emergency numbers on it for the supply authority, also a small chart giving incandescent/CFL/LED lamp equivalents and some other bumf but it stood out from all the other junk we receive because it was useful. Another example, we get thousands of flyers from estate agants which invariably have 'Want A Free Valuation' written all over them and go straight in the bin. One estate agent had graphs of house price trends and stated the amount that other houses in the local area had sold for also predictions of pricing for the next year. It was interesting info and I saw this particular flyer on a few of my friends and neighbors fridge doors.

 

[Kali_sparks]

thanks for all the replies guys. Reading through this post and others shows that even thought its tough, somepeople are scrapoing through and its still possible. Some brilliant ideas though, really interesting. Do you guys think this slump will last long or do you think the boom days or something simialr will come around again?

 

[Octopus]

"Have also considered leaflet drops and so on but am gathering so far that doesnt work for everyone and maybe a cost i cant afford to risk."

Sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring won't bring in any money either.

Get some leaftlets/rack cards done, spend time making them look professional and have a go, sure it'll cost you money (the cheaper they are the more likely they are to get binned or recycled) but sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate.

Also when you're out leafleting, when you see a home owner try and get a few words about your "skills".

I've got a quiet week next week, so I'll be out doing some more leafleting.......

My quiet week didn't happen, and today I got a call from a leaflet drop I did just after Easter last year - just goes to show how long people will actually keep a good leaflet.

Next time I've got a free morning or afternoon I will go out leafleting because the stock of leaflets I have are gathering dust.

At all times remain positive and things will get better, visit a new customer, be glum and downbeat - and the won't recommend you!